Bebop and Tempo Game Sample - PC/Indie
14So... there aren't a whole lot of really good games you can get on Steam for $1 or less (especially at regular price), so what do you do when you're a gamer on a tight budget? Try looking for freeware, hope to get gifted some games, play mobile games and such (typically with ads or a pay-to-win structure), "hunt in the wild or on the net" for deals, or take your chances with the slim pickings on the market that you can buy outright on the cheap. Generally lacking in content or polish, cheap games are almost synonymous for inferior or unrefined, but this isn't always the case. Maybe it's that very stigma that caused Brandon Dominguez to create "Bebop and Tempo", an old-school speed-runner with a surprising amount of content and a misleadingly high difficulty curve... comparing it to Dark Souls, Cuphead or "I Wanna Be The Guy" wouldn't be such a stretch. However, there are quite a few levels with increasing complexity and enemy traits, secrets to discover, super challenging castle levels, shop items to customize the experience, extra modes, and cute pixel graphics to absorb. For a $1, you really can't go wrong here, but the game is decent even on its own merits.
Players have to defeat all enemies on the stage to open the exit door, encountering a boss battle at the end of each area and certain stages have the extra task of collecting all items to get a star added to it. While it sounds simple, players only have two hits before they die (this was initially a one-hit death game), and it is extremely easy to die. While you have unlimited tries to clear a stage, the object of the game is to clear it as quickly as possible and with as few deaths as possible; the game gives you ghost data, logs your best times as well as how many times you've died, and a percentage of how much stuff you've cleared in the game. While beating the stages can be hard enough, beating them quickly requires a true mastery of the mechanics.
In this regard, players get to use Bebop, a bird who can ram enemies and evasive roll to avoid obstacles and projectiles, and Tempo (who is a "thing", don't know what he is, lol) who runs fast, jumps high, and can hit enemies directly below himself. When you hit an enemy, a small timer shows up; if you can keep hitting enemies before it resets, you gradually increase in speed. Using this mechanic properly and swapping effectively helps you get through certain areas easier, lowers stage time, and increases the synergy at work, but it is not for the faint of heart and requires a little practice and A LOT of patience.
When you do get the hang of it, it's almost seamless... I say almost, because the game still has a few kinks to work out. This is clearly a game based around memorization and twitch control, but the stages need to remain the same every time you die and hit-boxes need to be precise; you'll see a clear instance of this at least once in this video, but you sometimes miss enemies when you hit them or die when you clearly shouldn't. Considering this game is designed for speedrunning, that isn't something I can overlook.
The game is often compared to NES and GB games, but it feels a little more like a Sega Mark III / Sega Master System game as far as the sheer colorful graphics and sound design are concerned. Of course, that's not a bad thing. This is a video of the game in action. I skip a few things to cut the time down. You can get this at:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/628560/Bebop_and_Tempo/
Enjoy.
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